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Hassan Nemazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted in Manhattan federal court to defrauding three banks.

During the plea proceeding, Iranian-born Nemasee, who owned several multimillion dollar properties and had interests in various companies and hedge funds, said he had tried to get out of financial difficulty starting in the 1990s.

Nemazee, a former member of the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, was a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the revolution there in 1979.

Nemazee admitted to three charges of bank fraud and one charge of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the banks and used fake documents to show supposed ownership of collateral.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters at the daily press briefing that President Obama has called Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and would call Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over the postponement.

It is the second time that the Obama’’s tour was delayed.

President Obama, who was originally scheduled to visit Indonesia and Australia from March 18 to 24, had delayed the six- day tour to March 21 so that he can stay in Washington for pushing the tough healthcare reform.

Gibbs said that the Obama administration “greatly regret” the delay of the trip, but that the passage of health care reform is ” of paramount importance” and President Obama has decided to “see this battle through.”

Japan, which has already pledged 70 million dollars in emergency aid and for long-term reconstruction, will raise the total sum by 30 million dollars, public broadcaster said.

The additional aid will pay for shelters for people left homeless after the devastating 7.0-magnitude quake struck on January 12, killing more than 220,000 people, the network said, without naming its sources.

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada will announce the increase at a donors” conference at UN headquarters in New York on March 31, it added.

Clinton did not criticize the long-delayed project directly but said the Obama administration is opposed to the timing of the nuclear plant’’s startup. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the summer startup plans on Thursday, shortly after Clinton arrived for a two-day visit.

The nuclear plant is an example of Russian-Iranian economic ties and technical cooperation, on terms that have long made the United States uncomfortable.

It was a background issue during a difficult period in U.S.-Russian relations last year and in the ongoing U.S.-led effort to bring new United Nations economic penalties against Iran over suspicions that part of its nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb.

Putin’’s announcement adds another complication to the already long list of issues on which Clinton and her Russian hosts don”t agree. Clinton is seeing Putin on Friday.

At a news conference with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after talks on a wide range of issues, Clinton told reporters that Iran, while entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, must reassure the world that it is not trying to build a nuclear weapon.

“In the absence of those reassurances, we think it would be premature to go forward with any project at this time, because we want to send an unequivocal message to the Iranians,” she said.

The Quartet — made up of the United States, the United Nations, European Union and Russia — is expected to pressure Israel after its announcement of the construction of 1,600 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem.

The Israeli announcement led the Palestinians to call for a halt to peace talks and precipitated the worst crisis in US-Israeli relations in years, with senior US officials warning the plans jeopardized the peace process.

They also called the announcement’’s timing an “insult”, coming as US Vice President Joe Biden visited the region.

The meeting will include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Ashton’’s visit will come a day after she made a rare trip by a top foreign official to the Gaza Strip.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Thursday killed a Thai agricultural worker who was killed when it slammed into an Israeli kibbutz just a few kilometres from the Gaza border.

Israel replied early Friday with air strikes on Gaza, but there were no reports of any serious casualties according to eye-witnesses and Palestinian security officials.

The Moscow meeting will “demonstrate international support” for indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians, said US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley who is accompanying Clinton.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called Clinton late Thursday, Crowley said.

“They discussed specific actions that might be taken to improve the atmosphere for progress toward peace,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’’s office meanwhile said late Thursday that he had spoken by phone to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Palestinian security officials and eyewitnesses said that Israeli aicraft hit several targets across the coastal strip in the early hours of Friday, but there had been no reports of serious injuries.

A Palestinian group, the Al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar al-Sunna Brigade, claimed responsibility for Thursday’’s fatal rocket attack, which killed a Thai labourer working inside Israel near the Gaza border.

The group linked it to clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police in Jerusalem earlier this week.

A second rocket slammed into open ground elsewhere in southern Israel after dark, causing no casualties, a military spokesman said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing.

“All such acts of terror and violence against civilians are totally unacceptable and contrary to international law,” his office said.

David Coleman Headley, 49, admitted to using a friend’’s immigration company as a cover for surveillance activities in India and Denmark on behalf of two different Pakistan-based terrorist groups.

In a deal to change his earlier not guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow Headley to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

He will, however, be required to “truthfully testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, video-conferencing or letters rogatory,” prosecutors said.

“Today’’s guilty plea is a crucial step forward in our efforts to achieve justice for the more than 160 people who lost their lives in the Mumbai terrorist attacks,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

“David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities,” Holder said.

“Working with our domestic and international partners, we will not rest until all those responsible for the Mumbai attacks and the terror plot in Denmark are held accountable.”

The grey-haired, Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and American woman, Headley reportedly befriended Bollywood stars and even dated an actress during his lengthy surveillance trips to India.

The families asked a federal court in Washington this week to reconsider a February 16 ruling dismissing their case, alleging a “high-level cover-up” in the deaths of Yasser Al-Zahrani of Saudi Arabia and Salah Al-Salami of Yemen.

“Extraordinary and disturbing facts have come to light concerning the deaths of Yasser Al-Zahrani and Salah Al-Salami through four former soldiers who were stationed at Guantanamo at the time of the deaths and came forward because they could no longer stay silent,” the relatives” court petition read.

“Were it not for these soldiers, the information would likely have remained hidden behind the secrecy that surrounds Guantanamo,” they said.

At the time of their deaths, Al-Zahrani, 22, and Al-Salami, 33, had been detained without charge and held incommunicado for about four years at the US base in Cuba.

The Pentagon maintains that the two men, along with a third detainee, Mani Al-Utaybi of Saudi Arabia, committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells.

But first-hand accounts provided by the soldiers raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the deaths, and suggested that the men may have died as the result of torture at a “black site” at Guantanamo, according to the petition.

Maliki’’s State of Law Alliance led secular ex-premier Allawi’’s Iraqiya list by just 40,000 votes nationwide, according to latest results based on 89 percent of ballots counted.

But Iraqiya was on pace to garner 90 seats in the 325-member Council of Representatives compared with State of Law’’s 89, according to an earlier AFP calculation based on 83 percent of votes counted that excluded eight seats reserved for minorities.

Updated calculations were not immediately available.

Thursday’’s figures included 70 percent of special voting, conducted three days before the election, for security personnel, hospital patients and staff, and prisoners. Votes cast by Iraqis abroad have not yet been tabulated.

The election, the second since Saddam Hussein was ousted in the US-led invasion of 2003, comes less than six months before the United States is set to withdraw all of its combat troops from Iraq.

Overall, State of Law garnered 2,448,452 votes compared to Iraqiya’’s 2,408,547, a difference of 39,905. The Iraqi National Alliance (INA) was third nationwide with 1,859,606.

State of Law leads in Baghdad, which is the largest province and accounts for more than twice as many seats as any other.

It is also ahead in the southern oil province of Basra, the third biggest, as well as five other central and southern provinces, but has failed to finish in the top three in all but one of Iraq’’s Sunni-majority provinces.

Iraqiya, on the other hand, was leading in four provinces, including the second biggest, Nineveh. It was also in a virtual tie for the lead in a fifth, Kirkuk, where it was ahead of a Kurdish bloc by about 600 votes.

It was placed in the top three in six predominantly Shiite provinces where Maliki was either first or second.

The INA is set to come in third with 69 seats, according to AFP calculations, while Kurdistania, comprised of the autonomous Kurdish region’’s two long-dominant parties, is likely to have 39.

No other group is set to win more than 10 seats.

Both State of Law and Iraqiya have said they have begun talks with rival blocs to form a government, with analysts warning that political groupings could still manoeuvre to form a coalition without one of the two lists.

Iraq’’s system of proportional representation makes it unlikely for any single group to clinch the 163 seats required to form a government on its own.

Protracted coalition building is expected.

Complete election results were expected in the coming days. Final results — after all complaints have been investigated and ruled upon — are likely by the end of the month.

On Wednesday, an ally of Maliki charged that the count, which has so far taken 10 days, had been plagued by widespread fraud and demanded a nationwide recount.

“There has been clear manipulation inside the election commission in the interests of a certain or a specific list,” said Ali al-Adeeb, a State of Law candidate in central province of Karbala.

“State of Law demands the counting process be repeated to be sure that there has been no manipulation.”

His remarks were a sharp departure from Maliki’’s own just days earlier, when he dismissed allegations of fraud as “very small,” while election officials have downplayed allegations of fraud.